Narnia

I struggled to find a topic for  the letter N for weeks.  A number of subjects went through my head, none of which floated my boat.  I couldn't think of what to write about that began with N, in which I took an interest.  I nearly settled on doing a post about the New Wave music of the early 80s that I loved, but my M topic was already music-related.  Then it hit me with a big fat "DUH!!"  Narnia!!!

My first experience with these books was in the 8th grade.  My English class straddled all of the lunch periods for the day, so my teacher set it up that the first lunch was our 'silent reading' time.  Then our class had second lunch.  3rd and 4th were for our one hour class.  Mrs. Webster had tons of books available to read and one day I picked up The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis.  I fell in love with it, but I had no idea it was part of a set of books.  

That summer of 78 started cold and rainy, and I ended up spending most of my time reading in my room.  My dad was gathering stuff for a Lions Club yard sale and brought home boxes of books.  In one of the boxes, I found one called The Horse and His Boy, also by C.S. Lewis, so I snatched it up to read.  It was then that I noticed the list of 7 Narnia books on the dust jacket.

My parents, being the practical people that they were, didn't believe in buying books if you could get them from the library.  I pestered my mom to take me there so that I could check out the rest of the series.  That was pretty much the theme that whole summer.  Checking them out constantly and reading them over and over. And over.  I don't think anyone else had a chance to read them that summer because I had them!!!  Needless to say, I was sooooo excited to get the entire set for my birthday in November!!!  Did you know that the British editions are different than the American ones?  C.S. Lewis rewrote parts of them for the American release.  And yes, I own both versions.  Of the 7, Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my fave one and I was greatly disappointed in the movie that came out a few years ago.  While "LWW" and "Caspian" stayed true to the books, "Dawn Treader" veered wildly off plot, which I ranted about HERE.

I found the poster of the Map of Narnia at a shop in Hyannis the in the summer of 1979, and I used my allowance to buy it and have it mounted on foam board.  I may be 47, but it still hangs on my wall to this day.

I still love to read these books every now and again, and can't help but wish that C.S. Lewis could have fleshed them out more. I kinda wish that J.K. Rowling could take a crack at them and make them as long as her Potter books!!!